Cooking devices are used for the preparation of foods. The foods located therein are heated. During this process, vapors or steam or also other fluids are formed, which must be removed. For this reason, a cooking chamber outlet, through which these fluids then pass to a cooking device outlet or waste water connection and are disposed of, is generally located in the base of the cooking chamber of the cooking device.
Such a cooking device with a cooking chamber outlet for a fluid, a device outlet, a water reservoir, a connection pipe from the water reservoir into the cooking chamber, a transport means associated with the connection pipe for the controllable supply of fluid from the water reservoir into the cooking chamber, and a distribution means for the fluid in the cooking chamber is known from the patent document DE 20 2004 000 106 U1, for example.
Moreover, it is necessary that the cooking chamber of cooking devices is regularly cleaned. There have already been a series of proposals to automate this cleaning process as far as possible. The patent documents DE 197 30 610 C1, EP 0 892 220 B1, DE 100 17 966 A1, DE 101 09 247 A1, the subsequently published EP 1 364 166 B1 and DE 20 2004 000 106 U1 describe respective cooking devices, which perform such an automatic cleaning of the cooking chamber and its fittings, i.e. using a circulation-type principle. What the configurations all have in common is that the device outlet is closed by means of a valve or another assembly. A container is thus formed. This container can be the cooking chamber itself, or an additional container can also be arranged in the waste water pipe. If the cooking chamber is to be cleaned in this case, the cooking chamber or the container is filled with a cleaning liquid and the liquid is then distributed in the cooking chamber by means of a circulation pump.
The closed device outlet is then opened again to pass the now used liquid out of the cooking device again.
This process is controlled by means of an electronic device control system for the automatic cleaning.
While this automatic cleaning is indeed quite effective, certain aspects still cause problems therein. This applies in particular to the closing process of the device outlet. For example, if the locking device provided for this should not function as a result of a malfunction or if it is also only partially impaired, then this also compromises the main purpose of the entire cooking device, since the contaminated liquid can no longer exit from the cooking chamber, for example. Then, the entire cooking device can no longer be used, although only an ancillary unit with a subsidiary purpose is affected.
However, at least cleaning is already rendered impossible as a result.
Moreover, the cross-sections of the relevant pipe sections for a closure are relatively large for technical reasons. The diameters generally lie between 30 mm and 70 mm. As a result of this, the appropriate devices for closing these pipes are also quite expensive.
In contrast, it is an object of the present invention to permit an automatic cleaning for such cooking devices with a design that is as simple as possible, but also substantially technically reliable.